Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his ...
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Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his creative response to them as a poet, his philosophical understanding of them, the joy they gave him and the spiritual bond he felt with them. It includes excerpts from Thoreau’s extraordinary writing about trees from 1837 to 1861, illustrated with Higgins’s photography. The excerpts show his detailed observations on trees, his sense of loss at the ravaging of the forest during his life and the delight he took in the splendor of Concord’s woods and meadows. They also show his response to individual trees: an iconic Concord elm, a stand of old-growth oaks he discovered, his beloved white pines, trees made new by snow and trees as ships at sea. Higgins shows that Thoreau probed the complex lives of trees in the forest as a scientist and, as a poet and spiritual seeker, saw them as miracles that encapsulate all that is good about nature.Less

Thoreau and the Language of Trees

Richard HigginsRobert D. Richardson

Published in print: 2017-04-04

Thoreau and the Language of Trees is the first in-depth study of Thoreau’s passionate engagement with trees and his writing about them. It explores his keen eye for trees as a naturalist, his creative response to them as a poet, his philosophical understanding of them, the joy they gave him and the spiritual bond he felt with them. It includes excerpts from Thoreau’s extraordinary writing about trees from 1837 to 1861, illustrated with Higgins’s photography. The excerpts show his detailed observations on trees, his sense of loss at the ravaging of the forest during his life and the delight he took in the splendor of Concord’s woods and meadows. They also show his response to individual trees: an iconic Concord elm, a stand of old-growth oaks he discovered, his beloved white pines, trees made new by snow and trees as ships at sea. Higgins shows that Thoreau probed the complex lives of trees in the forest as a scientist and, as a poet and spiritual seeker, saw them as miracles that encapsulate all that is good about nature.